History Archives - Walking Heads

Back to the future with the Clay Pipe Factory

So we reach the final member of the cast of A Brisk Walk. The story of the Clay Pipe Factory makes a happy ending for our tour of buildings at risk. Or, perhaps we should say, a happy new beginning. […]

Graveyard safaris: cities of dead and living!

An old lion rests, eyes open, at the edge of the path, bats flitter among branches of an oak tree, a fox slinks into the undergrowth, children’s laughter echoes in the summer evening air. Where in heaven or earth are we? […]

Glasgow’s Hidden Culture: Part Three

And so we reach the Merchant City. On our Clydeside Promenade we encountered yet another aspect of Glasgow’s hidden culture, a side of the city that it has not wanted you to know about, until recently anyway. A side which is deeply rooted in its past, buried under years of commercial development and regeneration – Glasgow’s role in the slave trade. […]

Introducing Clydeside Promenade: The Story of Glasgow’s Living Force

“Why, I wonder, should it feel so moving just to be here?” asks writer Peter Ross. “Well, the Clyde is not Scotland’s longest river, and it is not the most beautiful, but it is, I would say, the river which lives most vividly within the minds and imagination of the Scottish people. It carries a freight of meaning.” And it is this very meaning that we explore in our brand new audio tour, Clydeside Promenade. Venturing along the river from Govan to Bridgeton, the tour takes in stops such as Water Row, Govan Pontoon, Broomielaw, St. Andrew’s Suspension Bridge and on through wilder reaches of Glasgow Green to the East End. […]

Monumental rogues

At last, a chance to look down on that old devil Dundas. Not an altogether likeable chap. Among other misdeeds, Viscount Melville helped to prolong the slave trade by 15 years yet he can be seen towering over Scotland’s capital city for miles. How come? […]

Teenage kicks at Glasgow Apollo

We last heard from Kenny Forbes, the mature student at the University of Glasgow undertaking a thesis on the famous Glasgow Apollo, some months ago. In this follow-up Q&A Kenny gives himself a hard time, asking himself: what’s the story, why is it taking so long? […]

Scratch the surface of the city

Every street has stories to tell and we didn’t have to go far down Manderston Street to find one. […]

Reggae Burns Night – Happy Birthday Bob Marley

They lived, loved, and died young. Half a world and almost 200 years apart, the two national bards Robert Burns and Bob Marley now inspire joint (no pun intended) annual celebrations of their birthdays. Gemma Brown reports on one of the best – and where else but in Glasgow’s Jamaica Street. Och Aye n Aye! […]